TDE Annex

Babbitt

2011-04-27T04:26:00.001-07:00

Actually, Nock and those patrons wrote in the age of Babbitt. The folks who created The Nockian Society came a generation later, but the "spirit" of Babbitt (Rotary Clubs, etc.) was still strong.

Ancient versus Modern Armies

2011-04-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

Bertrand de Jouvenel's On Power breaks down the alarming differences between pre-1789 armies and modern armies. He shows that the size of armies started to grow with the rise of republics and democracies. As people started to view the "nation" as their own (a public thing) instead of a private possession of the king, it became more natural for the people to die for it, so armies started increasing in size.

4.18.11

2011-04-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

"Republic, respublica, by the very force of the term, means the public wealth, or, in good English, the commonwealth; that is, government founded not on personal or private wealth, but on the public wealth, public territory, or domain . . . the king or emperor does not govern in his own private right . . . ". Orestes Brownson, The American Republic (ISI 2003), p. 23.

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2011-02-13T05:25:00.001-08:00

Rep. Ron Paul's

~~Rep. Ron Paul's~~ feelings about America's central bank are a matter of public record. An extensive public record: In dozens of congressional hearings over the past four decades, he has ribbed, cajoled, harassed, or annoyed any representative or defender of the Federal Reserve brave or unlucky enough to appear before him. Â¶

Normally, his interrogations concern America's profligate money printing, Congress's~~Congress'~~ unnecessary spending, the Fed's secrecy, and, especially, gold, which he believes should underpin the currency to render it sound. But his distrust runs wide and deep. Consider this comment from a 2007 hearing: "This whole notion that a central bank somehow has the wisdom to know what interest rates should be is, to me, rather bizarre. And also the source of so much mischief." Â¶

That first sentence is a neat encapsulation of his economic worldview. And the second could well apply to Paul himself. His career in and out of public office has been devoted to two propositions: 1) The Fed is bad. 2) The gold standard is good. His consistency has been impressive-—which is not to say he has been influential. He rarely gets satisfactory answers in hearings, and he'll probably never get satisfaction in his long~~, lonely~~ crusade to radically alter America's monetary policy.

But if you tilt at windmills long enough, sometimes you hit. And on Wednesday, Paul did: He held his first hearing~~first-ever hearing~~ as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee's~~House Financial Services Committee's~~ subcommittee on monetary policy, inviting two Austrian-school economists and one lonely representative from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute to debate how Fed policy affects the unemployment rate.

This may be Ron Paul's moment. The question now is what he does with it.

The reason he ran

~~It was on Aug. 15, 1971, that~~ Paul had his monetary-policy epiphany on Aug. 15, 1971 - the~~. That~~ day, the Federal Reserve shut its "gold window," meaning foreign governments could no longer trade gold for dollars at the fixed rate of $35 an ounce. The Bretton Woods system ~~The~~ ~~Bretton Woods system~~ officially ended and the dollar became fully "fiat currency," backed by nothing but the promise of the federal government. It shocked Paul, then a successful Texas obstetrician. "That's why I ran for Congress," Paul said~~told me~~. He was ~~first~~ elected to the House in 1976, running as a Republican on a limited-government platform.

Paul has since bounced in and out of Washington. He~~, serving from 1976 to 1977, 1979 to 1985, and 1997 to the present. During that time, he~~ has supported cutting defense spending, ending the Education Department ~~of Education~~, stopping welfare, and slashing taxes. But he's best known for his unrelenting ~~—and unchanging—~~skepticism of the Fed. Paul believes it stokes inflation and will harm the U.S. economy as long as it persists. Gold, he thinks, is the answer.

His monetary- policy quest has been quixotic. The closest Paul came to getting the gold standard reconsidered - —let alone reinstated - —came in 1981. At the beginning of the Reagan administration, Paul sat on a commission appointed to debate whether the United States might benefit from returning to commodity-backed money. Reagan had a "slight bias toward gold and its disciplines," Treasury Secretary Donald Regan told reporters at the time. But in a final report, ~~released March 31, 1982,~~ the panel rejected the idea.

Even so~~Despite the rejection~~, the next day's papers described Paul as jubilant. "For the first time in 50 years they seriously considered it," he said.~~, releasing a dissent.~~ "I do think that in due time, possibly even in this decade, there will be another serious discussion of gold as a monetary standard. I still do believe that gold is the money."

That ~~serious~~ discussion never really happened, though not for Paul'sa lack of trying. For on Paul's part. "I think for 20 years or so, they just wished I would go away," Paul explains, referring to the Fed officials he repeatedly took to task on the Hill. "They thought I was a nuisance." But he kept bothering them. He promoted his ideas on monetary policy through his ~~Foundation for Rational Economics and Education~~ ~~(acronym: FREE), his Ron Paul Investment Letter, and other publications. He brought national, if fleeting, attention to them during his failed 1988 presidential campaign. But for~~ the most part, he and his ideas became something of a sideshow - —he came to be~~became~~ seen as a crank, a radical, so far outside the mainstream he could be safely ignored.

That changed in 2008, when he ran for president again. This time, the run brought him cult-icon status. The phrase "End the Fed"~~cult-icon status~~ - the title of his most recent book - ~~. The very phrase "end the Fed"—the title of~~ ~~his most recent book~~—comes from his campaign. In it, he describes visiting a University of Michigan campus after an October 2007 Republican primary debate. To his surprise, when he "mentioned monetary policy, the kids started cheering. Then a small group chanted, 'End the Fed! End the Fed!' The whole crowd took up the call. Many held up burning dollar bills, as if to say to the central bank, 'You~~you~~ have done enough damage to the American people.'â"."

He remains an iconoclast even within his own party, and his legislative proposals tend to go nowhere.

But last year PaulHe remains an iconoclast even within his own party, and his actual legislative proposals tend to go nowhere. Since 1997, he has acted as the primary sponsor of 422 bills. Just four of those have ever made it to the floor of the House for a vote: a bill withdrawing the United States' ~~support for the World Trade Organization, a bill recognizing the~~ ~~Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, another commending a~~ ~~NASA mission, and one granting some property to the~~ ~~Galveston Historical Foundation. Only the last became law.~~

~~But last year Paul had what may be his greatest triumph as a legislator. He~~ and other members of Congress successfully placed a provision to perform an audit of the Federal Reserve into the Dodd-Frank law, against the ~~strong~~ opposition of both the Fed and the Obama administration. The bill also forced the bank to release the details of 21,000 loans granted to financial firms during the credit crunch.

Now Paul is in charge of the House subcommittee that ~~actually~~ oversees the Fed. That might cause some awkward moments~~, to say the least~~. The title of his book is not misleading. The central bank "is immoral, unconstitutional, impractical, promotes bad economics, and undermines liberty," he writes.

Frustrations with Fed

That's part of the reason he supports reinstating the gold standard, which would obviate the need for a monetary policymaking apparatus as well as rein in government spending and end inflation. Talk of a return to a gold (or silver) standard for the dollar has moved from the fringe toward the mainstream, if not into it. A dozen state legislators have proposed ~~locally instating gold standards~~ ~~or, at least, commodity payment systems.~~

"I believe that freedom itself is at stake in this struggle," Paul says in End the Fed. Just a few years ago, he reiterated the point to the New York Times: "We will go back to the gold standard, even if it takes the near-destruction of the dollar to get there."

The financial crisis and ~~ensuing~~ recession brought about a~~an enormous~~ wave of anti-Fed sentiment. ~~In 2009 a poll found the~~ ~~Fed less popular than any other federal entity, including the Internal Revenue Service.~~ "In the minds of the public, the Fed was the great enabler of this huge catastrophe that we've had since the panic of 2008," said~~says~~ Steve Hanke, a ~~professor at Johns Hopkins University and~~ senior fellow at the Cato Institute. ~~"And I think the general consensus is that they remain the source of a lot of the problems we're facing right now as well."~~

Such~~In the sweep of the Fed's history, such~~ criticism is hardly unusual.

~~, says Sarah Binder, a George Washington University professor and fellow at the Brookings Institution.~~ "There is always Fed-bashing that ebbs and flows, coming from the strange bedfellows, from the far left and the far right," said Sarah Binder, a Brookings Institution fellow. ~~Binder says. (This remains true: Paul joins politicians like social democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders in his Fed-bashing.) "When the economy sours, we hear more criticism."~~

Still, there is a case to be made that this time is different. The severity of the recession prompted the Fed to take extraordinary measures~~truly~~ ~~extraordinary measures~~ to stabilize the banking sector during the credit crunch~~—measures that even Fed officials admit might not have been totally legal~~. It accepted more than $1 trillion in junk-rated assets as collateral, something it never had never done before the crisis. And it was not just Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers~~Bros.~~ availing themselves of the Fed's largesse - —it was Caterpillar and the Korean Development Bank.

"It was a little surprising, in the scope of the data dump, seeing just how impaired some assets were," says Vincent Reinhart, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former Fed official, referring to the 21,000 released transactions. "The Fed did overstate the quality of loans."

Binder acknowledged~~also acknowledges~~ that the Fed might have overstepped far enough to generate some real headaches.

"The independence of the Fed has really been compromised by what happened during the financial crisis," she said. "~~says. The bank "went far [beyond] what we think of as traditional monetary policy. And the Fed's independence, which it could always fall back on—they don't have that cushion of comfort anymore.~~ There is aggressive and ambitious criticism coming from a lot of fronts."

The Fed has taken~~noticed and is taking~~ steps to respond. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke~~Bernanke himself~~ has appeared~~deigned to appear~~ on "60 Minutes,", going so far as to give a tour of his childhood home in Dillon, S.C. He has visited ~~college~~ campuses, explaining the crisis in clear if professorial terms. He has courted~~courted~~ members of Congress and journalists. Then there is ~~More overt pandering comes from~~ the St. Louis Federal Reserve ~~Bank~~, which is hosting a $1,000 contest~~competition~~ for the best YouTube video~~YouTube video~~ stressing the value~~importance~~ of an independent central bank. "What makes independence for a nation's central bank important?" the promo asks. "Let us know through your video creation!"

The Austrian school

But Paul's adversary is not only the Federal Reserve. It is also mainstream monetary economics itself. As a devotee of the Austrian school, whose luminaries include Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, Paul stands firmly outside ~~current~~ policymaking and academic circles, a point he enthusiastically admits. (The Austrian economists also often quibble with other libertarians, such as~~like~~ those at Cato.) His beef is not with how central bankers do their jobs; it's with central banking itself.

"The Fed, rightly so, criticizes Congress for spending too much - —but they make the money available to us!" he said~~told me~~. "It buys debt, keeps interest rates low, and sticks it to the people who want to save and make money. It is so unfair. And I think it is the first time in the history of the Fed that people realize it is not their friend. It just gives us booms and busts."

Many economists disagree, with varying degrees of vehemence. One of the gentler responses comes from Vincent Reinhart, a~~the~~ former Fed official and current American Enterprise Institute~~AEI~~ scholar: "There is tremendous complexity in the monetary and banking systems now, and Ron Paul is basically saying: 'Let's make everything simple again. If we could make market discipline effective, we wouldn't need such complicated regulation. If we had the gold standard, we wouldn't need complex monetary policy.' But the issue is: How do we get from here to there? There might not be a way. And at some point, it is just nostalgia for a time that never really existed."

Many~~Indeed, many~~ economists point to evidence that banking crises and recessions were ~~much,~~ much more severe leading up to the Great Depression and the advent of modern monetary policymaking. They also note that the Fed's ~~extraordinary~~ monetary policy in 2008 and 2009 stabilized~~did stabilize~~ the banking sector, boosted~~boost~~ GDP, and kept~~keep~~ up employment.

But Paul is not always happy to entertain such counterfactuals or criticisms. For instance, ~~I asked him~~ who does he consider~~considers~~ his most trenchant critic?. He paused. ~~before responding,~~ "I did like talking to Paul Volcker." Have~~I also asked whether there were~~ any economists or economic theories ~~that had~~ changed his views since the 1970s?~~, when he first became a devotee of the Austrian school.~~ "I mostly go back to the Austrian economists," he said, matter-of-factly.

~~In testimony, Paul's dogmatism also shines through. Bernanke—whom~~ Paul maintains~~described today as "arrogant" and "cocky"—has, for instance, tried to convince him~~ that the ~~dollar is in no danger of crisis in numerous testimonies. Paul has swatted the notion away.~~

~~When I asked Paul about this, he maintained the~~ Fed has set us up for a currency crisis down the road. "It won't be as bad as Zimbabwe," he said, "but~~says. "But~~ perhaps something like 1979 or 1980." He noted that geopolitical events often kick off economic ones. "The revolutions in the Middle East, that could end up being the precipitating event," he said. "Tunisia, Egypt - —they may well tumble."

Chairman Paul

At Wednesday'sPaul might be steadfast in his beliefs, but he has few plans to impose them on an unsuspecting America. He is, in fact, honest about what would happen if his fondest wishes came true. "If tomorrow we closed the Fed and started using a gold standard, it would be so chaotic nobody would know what to do," he says. "There are interim positions, such as allowing competition in currencies." But, he admits, "People aren't ready for that. It's complicated—it is very complicated."

Rather than returning America to the banking system of the 1890s, then, Paul has adopted a somewhat more modest mission: Keeping alive the current conversation about the Fed. It's a conversation that some economists and think tank scholars say can't hurt. "We have not seen a lot of hearings on monetary policy from the monetary policy subcommittee," notes Mark Calabria, the director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. "To a certain extent, a lot of members of Congress don't want to bother with the topic. The way I see it, Paul will attempt a public-information campaign. It is not going to be the end of the world for the Fed."

~~On Wednesday, that first~~ hearing, ~~came to pass.~~ Paul's panel~~subcommittee~~ invited three economists to debate the question ~~that was also the hearing's title:~~ "Can Monetary Policy Really Create Jobs?":~~?" The economists were~~ Thomas DiLorenzo of Loyola University Maryland, Richard Vedder of Ohio University, and Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. The answers were no, no, and yes.

~~Committee hearings are rarely enlightening, as members of Congress and testifying witnesses compete to get their sound bites into the record. But this hearing proved particularly shambolic.~~ The conversation lurched from the Fed's dual mandate to quantitative easing to the Dodd-Frank law~~bill~~ to China to price stability to the money supply to money volatility to universal default laws - —resting only briefly on the subject of monetary policy and unemployment.

The economists were so ideologically at odds - —DiLorenzo and Vedder both from the tiny, heterodox Austrian school and Bivens representing nonpartisan but progressive EPI - —that they agreed on virtually nothing except ~~for~~ the faults of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Then, the ranking ~~committee member,~~ Democrat on the committee, Rep. William Lacy Clay (Mo.),, really set off fireworks. He began by criticizing the Austrian school, saying it was marked by its "lack of scientific rigor and rejection of empirical data." (Paul sat next to him poker-faced.)

Then he attacked DiLorenzo, noting he is perhaps best known for a "revisionist" history of Abraham Lincoln - —and, more to the point, holds an affiliation with the League of the South, a "neo-Confederate" "hate group" that seeks to build a society dominated by those of European backgrounds.

"After reviewing your work and the so-called message you employ, I still do not understand you being invited to testify today on the unemployment situation," Clay said. "But I do know that I have no questions for you."

But Paul seemed upbeat. ~~at the hearing's end:~~ The subcommittee accomplished his ~~stated~~ goal of bringing outside perspectives into Congress and letting criticism of the Fed fly.

"Everybody knows that I believe in free markets and sound money and I'm a critic of Federal Reserve policy," he said. "That was the point I wanted to get across." ~~In this Congress, he will have ample opportunity to do so~~

Monday

2011-01-23T04:02:00.000-08:00

The level of my respect for the Tao: My son, Jack, is named after C.S. Lewis, and one of Lewis' most-famous non-fiction book (The Abolition of Man) used The Tao as a starting point. Lewis didn't use it in quite the same way as the sports psychologist, but there's overlap.

von Mises

2011-01-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

This is the first of what will, hopefully, be many installments as I plod through Human Action. But the reader should be aware: These are, for the most part, reflections from my reading as I go. These are not reflections by a guy who has finished HA, or a guy who is consulting outside sources to corroborate his interpretation. These posts are, in a way, journal entries. I will endeavor not to post anything flat-out wrong, but neither am I researching and backing up my assertions/interpretations.

In this inaugural post, the reader should be aware that it appears to me that von Mises posits a mere two initial truths (life and happiness). But that's just what I'm seeing. If a Misesian knows better, I encourage him to correct me in the comments box.

My Limited Misesian Background
Although I have read a lot about von Mises, prior to this project I havn't read much by him (just a few stray essays/excerpts from books, plus his book Bureaucracy.

BTW:
Bureaucracy, incidentally, didn't greatly impress me. Basically, the book has one tremendous insight, and then the rest of the book elaborates on it. I think the same point could've been made cogently in fewer than 5,000 words.

Metals

2011-01-15T02:28:00.000-08:00

I've read every argument out there about the need to hold physical metals . . . in your pocket, not at the bank. I don't disagree with the arguments, but the bottom line is, every form of investment and way of holding it brings risks. As a practical matter, I fear burglary more than I fear the federal government seizure of my safe deposit box, so I keep my metals there. Trust me, I know I might regret it, but I weigh the different unlikely risks, and I've come down in favor of taking the institutional risk.

Maybe I'm a socialist at heart: I trust the government to do the right thing. Not really, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm more comfortable with the bank than my house right now.

Bagehot

2010-12-14T10:51:00.001-08:00

"I know it will be said that in this work I have pointed out a deep malady, and only suggested a superficial remedy. I have tediously insisted that the natural system of banking is that of many banks keeping their own cash reserve, with the penalty of failure before them if they neglect it. I have shown that our system is that of a single bank keeping the whole reserve under no effectual penalty of failure."

Walter Bagehot, "Conclusion," Lombard Street.

Why Basil?

2010-12-12T14:27:00.000-08:00

It didn't take Valens long to take more direct action against Basil. In 372, Valens' zealous Arian servant, Modestus (the "Count of the East"), came to Caesarea and summoned Basil. Basil — emaciated from his asceticism but mentally rigorous — came. Modestus shouted at him: "Basil, how dare you defy our great power? How dare you stand alone? Everyone else has yielded, and you alone refuse to accept the religion commanded by the Emperor." After Basil showed no recalcitrance, an exchange took place that is recounted in every biography of Basil:

Modestus: What, do you not fear my power?

Basil: What could happen to me? What might I suffer?

Modestus: Any one of the numerous torments which are in my power.

Basil: What are these? Tell me about them.

Modestus: Confiscation, exile, torture, death.

Basil: If you have any other, you can threaten me with it, for there is nothing so far which affects me.

Modestus: Why, what do you mean?

Basil: Well, in truth confiscation means nothing to a man who has nothing, unless you covet these wretched rags, and a few books: that is all I possess. As to exile, that means nothing to me, for I am attached to no particular place. That wherein I live is not mine, and I shall feel at home in any place to which I am sent. Or rather, I regard the whole earth as belonging to God, and I consider myself as a stranger or sojourner wherever I may be. As for torture, how will you apply this? I have not a body capable of bearing it, unless you are thinking of the first blow that you give me, for that will be the only one in your power. As for death, this will be a benefit to me, for it will take me the sooner to the God for Whom I live, for Whom I act, and for Whom I am more than half dead, and Whom I have desired long since.

Basil's words are a testament to the truth that the meek inherit the earth. After this exchange, Modestus largely left him alone, and the Emperor Valens never pushed matters to a conclusion with Basil again.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4445

May 29, 2010

2010-05-29T04:02:00.001-07:00

Re: Ferguson

Don't be too anxious to quote me regarding Ferguson. I am relying partly on (an occasionally-flawed) memory (I believe the Lew Rockwell site criticized Ferguson on this point) and on his Ascent of Money, which I'm still reading (about 2/3rds of the way through).

Dispatches from Extreme Economics

2009-12-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

BTW: I hope to make "Dispatches from Extreme Economics" a recurring feature. When you see such a post, it means: "This strikes me as a little over the top and extreme, but it's a development/idea worth watching." Put another way, "I think this person has a point, even if I'm a little embarrassed to admit it for fear people will think me an extremist."

An Allegroy

2009-12-05T01:43:00.000-08:00

It's federal money. Don't say "taxpayer money." I hate that term. It implies that taxpayers have a property right to the money, which they don't. The money feeds the federal government machine, and the money belongs to it by force. Taxpayers have no more right to it than I have a right to access my neighbor's checking account.

Nominal

2009-11-21T04:05:00.000-08:00

If you adjust for inflation, the price of gold is nowhere near its all-time high. Adjusted for inflation, the price of gold would have to go up to $2,500, at a minimum, to hit its high, and that's using the federal government's questionable CPI calculations. With proper inflation adjustments, it's probably closer to $7,000. See this link.

50%?

2009-11-16T04:36:00.000-08:00

Nearly fifty percent of our incomes go to taxes? It depends on the taxpayer, of course, but this is a fair approximation of taxes calculated on income:

Federal income taxes: 20%
Social Security/Medicare taxes: 7.65%
State income taxes: 5%

On top of this, most people incur sales taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes, and a host of other excise taxes that are passed onto the consumer. In my situation (and I don't own a big home and I don't spend a lot of money on non-essentials), I estimate that the sales and property taxes take about 5% of my income.

Because of my seven children, my federal income blended marginal rate is fairly low, so I think my total share of taxes comes to about 40%. Many people, though, are well over 50%. Regardless of whether it's 40% or 60%, it's really disturbing if you sit down and think about it (which, of course, you're not supposed to do).

Diversify

2009-10-24T04:19:00.000-07:00

Re: True diversification.

When I say "true diversification," I mean stocks, bonds, metals, commodities, and foreign currrencies . . . with a heavy emphasis on foreign. Follow the demographics. If 95% of the world's population is not in the United States, most economic activity will, by sheer force of demographic gravity, shift outside the United States. The U.S. is still the economic superpower of the world, so I'd give it extra weight, but not to the tune of 50% of my portfolio, which is where traditional investment advice would put it. Maybe more like 20-30% (including cash and bond holdings).

Catholic Investing?

I have this nascent line of thought, incidentally, that this is a Catholic approach to investing. Rome is not American-centric. When JPII held great hopes for a Catholic renaissance in the 21st century, I'm pretty sure he wasn't banking on America's spirituality. I suspect he was thinking about the rest of the world springing forth with spiritual prosperity as it begins to shake off its third-world nation status. For the rest of the world to assert an influence in things religious, it must first be able to fend for itself economically . . . or at least get past the most-primitive of economies, but hopefully without becoming Ireland in the process.

Socrates and the Cure

2009-08-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

We’ve all heard of wise Socrates. Greek philosopher, Plato’s teacher, executed in 399 b.c, sometimes called the pagan Christ. His friends loved him dearly; students knew his virtue.

His enemies, on the other hand, thought he was a fool and a subversive. They made fun of him, warned their children to stay away from him, and eventually forced him to drink hemlock—all because he sought the truth, or perhaps more accurately, because of his persistence and the way he sought it.

He sought it with questions. Today we call it the Socratic Method, but it wasn’t a “method” for Socrates; it was no wily pre-calculated trick he used to make his interlocutors look stupid. It was merely a straightforward and sincere bunch of questions that Socrates asked as the conversation progressed. The sincerity and good faith of Socrates’ questions is evident in Plato’s works, which make it clear that Socrates was something like a child, asking earnest questions of men who were supposed to be smart in hopes of finding answers to the things that perplexed him. Like Zen that “just looks” or St. Therese who “just did,” Socrates was “just asking.”

But here was the problem: The questions struck deep, diving into long valleys of wisdom. The questions stumped the esteemed men of Athens, who were too concerned with their money and reputation to think about such things. As a result, they looked stupid. And people with power don’t like to look stupid. In today’s world, you end up losing your job if you do such a thing. In Socrates’ world, you ended up drinking hemlock.

In addition to being wise, Socrates was intensely unconcerned with himself. He just walked about, poor as dirt, contemplating and conversing, working just enough to live. In a way, his life resembles St. Therese’s Little Way. It was such a holy and virtuous way that the sixteenth-century Catholic humanist Erasmus was known to say, “Saint Socrates, pray for us!”

I don’t think I’m stretching it to say that Socrates is the earliest existentialist. And I’m discussing him because he is an excellent example of a fundamental fact: an unassuming existentialist personality is often found in wise people. Saint Thomas Aquinas, for instance, was one of the most-learned and wise men in history, but a simple man who never wanted any attention thrown on himself. There’s also the example of St. Therese; she had little education, but her Little Way was so jammed full of wisdom that she was subsequently declared a doctor of the Catholic Church. Great thinkers like Blaise Pascal, G.K. Chesterton, Etienne Gilson, Edith Stein, to name precious few, also had unassuming and self-effacing characteristics.

And there’s St. John Vianney, the Cure d’Ars, one of the most compelling pieces of evidence that wisdom tends to descend on the unassuming.

John Vianney

I think it’s safe to say that John Vianney was not an intelligent man and may have had an intellectual quotient lower than average. While a seminarian at age 19, the other students (adolescent boys) giggled at his intellectual inability and grew frustrated when he delayed lessons with his slowness. He couldn’t meet the intellectual requirements for becoming a priest, even though the requirements were relaxed at that time in order to alleviate a priest shortage following the Napoleanic Wars. He failed his examinations at major seminary and was asked to leave. Given another chance and a vigorous 3-month tutorial by a learned friend, he failed again. He finally passed, after being allowed to take the exam in special surroundings (a relaxed atmosphere, so he wouldn’t get too flustered).

But he was also a simple person. As a boy, he worked hard for his father with no thought—much less complaining—about the difficult labor. As a 19-year-old seminarian, John kneeled at the feet of a 12-year-old fellow student who became exasperated with him, and asked the boy to forgive his slowness. As a new parish priest, he declined the help of a household servant. As pastor, he showed little, if any, regard for his own well-being, opting to pray constantly for the salvation of his parishioners’ souls and listening to confessions for over eight hours a day. He left his parish only twice during his 29-year stint as pastor of Ars, and spent one of the stints caring for the souls of hundreds of pilgrims who found him as he tried to take a brief, well-merited break from his duties.

His simple self-effacement was combined with a penetrating wisdom (actually, if I’m right about this, his self-effacement resulted in a penetrating wisdom). This was apparent in his early years at the seminary, when, although he couldn’t articulate the lessons well, a teacher said his application of the lessons was superb. As Pastor at Ars, his constant teaching (he is known as the man who out-talked the Devil) converted a spiritually-moribund village into a sphere of piety. Today, he is widely quoted—his words are fetched by priests hoping to give insight and assembled by publishers hoping to sell wisdom.

He was able to pass along truths in words that the simplest person can understand—strong evidence of deep understanding. He did not, for instance, need a lengthy exegesis to explain the philosophy of death and justice (embodied in the Greek word Thanatos). He merely told listeners, “To die well we must live well.” He did not need to understand psychology to note that the “way to destroy bad habits is by watchfulness and by doing often those things which are the opposite to one’s besetting sins.” He did not need to study and read the Stoics, Plato and Aristotle to understand the oneness of virtue: “It is only the first step which is hard in the way of abnegation. When we are once fairly entered upon it, all goes smoothly; and when we have this virtue, we have every other.” He understood the principal of connaturality (which says that sin muddles thinking) so well that he could summarize it for his rowdy parishioners as “It is just those who have the least fear of God and his judgments in their hearts that have nothing but pleasure in their heads.” The examples of his simple wisdom could go on and on.

The reason for the combination of simplicity and wisdom is not easy to understand. It lies in a theological problem that starts with the book of Genesis. But the problem has an explanation and its explanation helps reveal the importance of spiritual existentialism.

The Theology of Existentialism

The book of Genesis tells us that this world is God’s creation. As a result, the world is related to God and, at some level, reflects Him, just as this book, at some level, reflects my personality. This world bears some likeness to God, or, to use the terminology of theologians, this world is “analogous” to God. This is especially true of humans, creatures made in His image.

It is crucial to understand that humans are analogous to God in their existence, not through their essences. Essences are characteristics that give form to a thing. If a person is described as six-feet tall, ill-tempered, quick-witted, and a good typist, his existence is not described at all; only his characteristics are described. It would be ridiculous to attribute these characteristics to God through analogy.

Moreover, our essences can cloud our existence to the extent their forms, like greed and ambition, emanate from excessive self-regard. A spiritual existentialist like John Vianney lives a life that strips away the forms. When a person stops thinking about himself—when he starts to just exist, to just look out—he sheds the various forms that gratify the self because he’s not thinking about himself. As a person sheds the forms and returns to the simple act of existence, he becomes more analogous to God, which—because God is the source of all things and the font of wisdom—tends to make the person wiser.

A radical spiritual existentialist like John Vianney who lives a daily life of simplicity tends to cultivate deep understanding because he lives a life as analogous to God as possible. That simple life inevitably issues forth in a stream of wisdom, regardless of earthly limitations or characteristics because wisdom issues from being, not characteristics. Raw intelligence becomes a secondary concern and wisdom can shine forth in an otherwise-unintelligent person.

At the Root of Existentialism

Satan successfully tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden with the prospect that, if they followed his advice, they would become like gods. Regardless of the actual device used by Satan—a fig or apple or whatever—the key is that they sought to add something to themselves in addition to the divine image that was implanted in them at creation. The crux of their sin was a violation of existence: They sought to change—deviate from, change, improve—the existence bestowed on them by God.

Before that first sin, man’s essences worked harmoniously with existence. Essences, in a sense, obeyed man’s highest attribute as a being who participates in God through the act of existence. The forms, endowed with perfect virtue, did not disrupt that participation, but rather furthered it.

But as a result of our first parents’ sin, we became fallen creatures with our goodness (our being as bestowed by God) splattered with a cancerous growth: excess essence. Excess essences, like the passions, became part of man’s make-up and were twisted together with the good and immutable essences implanted by God at creation—like the ability to love and to act virtuously. The new conglomeration of essences could no longer be counted upon to work harmoniously with existence. Sometimes the essences work harmoniously with our existence, as when we act virtuously, sometimes they disrupt existence, as when we indulge a sinful passion.

The Fall brought about another, related problem as well: Radical, primordial, incompleteness—an incompleteness that cuts to the core of our nature. With this incompleteness, we also have, unsurprisingly, a sense of our incompleteness (like a one-armed man is aware that he is physically incomplete) and an innate desire to get over the incompleteness (like a one-armed man has a tendency to visit prosthetic websites).

It’s because of this incompleteness that Aristotle began his book Metaphysics with the statement, “All men by nature desire to know.” Due to our innate ignorance (incompleteness), we have an innate desire (a primordial itch) for knowledge or understanding that will make us complete and quell the intuitive sense of anxiety that our incompleteness causes. The best way to scratch that primordial itch: wisdom. Wisdom is what all people want.

Consequently, if wisdom walks hand-in-hand with the act of existentialism, as it did in the lives of Socrates and St. John Vianney and many others, then we have a natural inclination to pursue existentialism and to live an existentialist kind of life. It’s what we want, whether or not we’re aware of it. It may not be the only thing we want, but it is the deepest and most solid desire in our human make-up.

And if this desire is smothered, then our highest, or deepest, desire is buried and we find ourselves living a repression. And in a repression, the thing repressed, once freed, jets out with great energy. This phenomenon—repression and release—is the reason existentialism has been so popular in modern times because modernity is full of excess essences that bury our natural inclination to existentialism.

July 4, 2009

2009-07-04T03:08:00.001-07:00

Big Three: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.

Ramrod Job Against the Middle Class

2009-05-30T04:53:00.000-07:00

"The Forgotten Man"
By William Graham Sumner.¹

The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is, that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together, and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism, until an equilibrium is produced by a re-adjustment of all interests and rights. They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion - that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.

The friends of humanity start out with certain benevolent feelings toward "the poor," "the weak," "the laborers," and others of whom they make pets. They generalize these classes, and render them impersonal, and so constitute the classes into social pets. They turn to other classes and appeal to sympathy and generosity, and to all the other noble sentiments of the human heart. Action in the line proposed consists in a transfer of capital from the better off to the worse off. Capital, however, as we have seen, is the force by which civilization is maintained and carried on. The same piece of capital cannot be used in two ways. Every bit of capital, therefore, which is given to a shiftless and inefficient member of society, who makes no return for it, is diverted from a reproductive use; but if it was put into reproductive use, it would have to be granted in wages to an efficient and productive laborer. Hence the real sufferer by that kind of benevolence which consists in an expenditure of capital to protect the good-for-nothing is the industrious laborer. The latter, however, is never thought of in this connection. It is assumed that he is provided for and out of the account. Such a notion only shows how little true notions of political economy have as yet become popularized. There is an almost invincible prejudice that a man who gives a dollar to a beggar is generous and kind-hearted, but that a man who refuses the beggar and puts the dollar in a savings bank is stingy and mean. The former is putting capital where it is very sure to be wasted, and where it will be a kind of seed for a long succession of future dollars, which must be wasted to ward off a greater strain on the sympathies than would have been occasioned by a refusal in the first place. Inasmuch as the dollar might have been turned into capital and given to a laborer who, while earning it, would have reproduced it, it must be regarded as taken from the latter. When a millionaire gives a dollar to a beggar the gain of utility to the beggar is enormous, and the loss of utility to the millionaire is insignificant. Generally the discussion is allowed to rest there. But if the millionaire makes capital of the dollar, it must go upon the labor market, as a demand for productive services. Hence there is another party in interest - the person who supplies productive services. There always are two parties. The second one is always the Forgotten Man, and any one who wants to truly understand the matter in question must go and search for the Forgotten Man. He will be found to be worthy, industrious, independent, and self-supporting. He is not, technically, "poor" or "weak"; he minds his own business, and makes no complaint. Consequently the philanthropists never think of him, and trample on him.

We hear a great deal of schemes for "improving the condition of the working-man." In the United States the farther down we go in the grade of labor, the greater is the advantage which the laborer has over the higher classes. A hod-carrier or digger here can, by one day's labor, command many times more days' labor of a carpenter, surveyor, book-keeper, or doctor than an unskilled laborer in Europe could command by one day's labor. The same is true, in a less degree, of the carpenter, as compared with the book-keeper, surveyor, and doctor. This is why the United States is the great country for the unskilled laborer. The economic conditions all favor that class. There is a great continent to be subdued, and there is a fertile soil available to labor, with scarcely any need of capital. Hence the people who have the strong arms have what is most needed, and, if it were not for social consideration, higher education would not pay. Such being the case, the working-man needs no improvement in his condition except to be freed from the parasites who are living on him. All schemes for patronizing "the working classes" savor of condescension. They are impertinent and out of place in this free democracy. There is not, in fact, any such state of things or any such relation as would make projects of this kind appropriate. Such projects demoralize both parties, flattering the vanity of one and undermining the self-respect of the other.

For our present purpose it is most important to notice that if we lift any man up we must have a fulcrum, or point of reaction. In society that means that to lift one man up we push another down. The schemes for improving the condition of the working classes interfere in the competition of workmen with each other. The beneficiaries are selected by favoritism, and are apt to be those who have recommended themselves to the friends of humanity by language or conduct which does not betoken independence and energy. Those who suffer a corresponding depression by the interference are the independent and self-reliant, who once more are forgotten or passed over; and the friends of humanity once more appear, in their zeal to help somebody, to be trampling on those who are trying to help themselves.

Trades-unions adopt various devices for raising wages, and those who give their time to philanthropy are interested in these devices, and wish them success. They fix their minds entirely on the workmen for the time being in the trade, and do not take note of any other workmen as interested in the matter. It is supposed that the fight is between the workmen and their employers, and it is believed that one can give sympathy in that contest to the workmen without feeling responsibility for anything farther. It is soon seen, however, that the employer adds the trades-union and strike risk to the other risks of his business, and settles down to it philosophically. If, now, we go farther, we see that he takes it philosophically because he has passed the loss along on the public. It then appears that the public wealth has been diminished, and that the danger of a trade war, like the danger of a revolution, is a constant reduction of the well-being of all. So far, however, we have seen only things which could lower wages - nothing which could raise them. The employer is worried, but that does not raise wages. The public loses, but the loss goes to cover extra risk, and that does not raise wages.

A trades-union raises wages (aside from the legitimate and economic means notice in Chapter VI) by restricting the number of apprentices who may be taken into the trade. This device acts directly on the supply of laborers, and that produces effects on wages. If, however, the number of apprentices is limited, some are kept out who want to get in. Those who are in have, therefore, made a monopoly, and constituted themselves a privileged class on a basis exactly analogous to that of the old privileged aristocracies. But whatever is gained by this arrangement for those who are in is won at a greater loss to those who are kept out. Hence it is not upon the masters nor upon the public that trades-unions exert the pressure by which they raise wages; it is upon other persons of the labor class who want to get into the trades, but, not being able to do so, are pushed down into the unskilled labor class. These persons, however, are passed by entirely without notice in all the discussions about trades-unions. They are the Forgotten Men. But, since they want to get into the trade and win their living in it, it is fair to suppose that they are fit for it, would succeed at it, would do well for themselves and society in it; that is to say, that, of all persons interested or concerned, they most deserve our sympathy and attention.

The cases already mentioned involve no legislation. Society, however, maintains police, sheriffs, and various institutions, the object of which is to protect people against themselves - that is, against their own vices. Almost all legislative effort to prevent vice is really protective of vice, because all such legislation saves the vicious man from the penalty of his vice. Nature's remedies against vice are terrible. She removes the victims without pity. A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set up on him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness. Gambling and other less mentionable vices carry their own penalties with them.

Now, we never can annihilate a penalty. We can only divert it from the head of the man who has incurred it to the heads of others who have not incurred it. A vast amount of "social reform" consists in just this operation. The consequence is that those who have gone astray, being relieved from Nature's fierce discipline, go on to worse, and that there is a constantly heavier burden for the others to bear. Who are the others? When we see a drunkard in the gutter we pity him. If a policeman picks him up, we say that society has interfered to save him from perishing. "Society" is a fine word, and it saves us the trouble of thinking. The industrious and sober workman, who is mulcted of a percentage of his day's wages to pay the policeman, is the one who bears the penalty. But he is the Forgotten Man. He passes by and is never noticed, because he has behaved himself, fulfilled his contracts, and asked for nothing.

The fallacy of all prohibitory, sumptuary, and moral legislation is the same. A and B determine to be teetotalers, which is often a wise determination, and sometimes a necessary one. If A and B are moved by considerations which seem to them good, that is enough. But A and B put their heads together to get a law passed which shall force C to be a teetotaler for the sake of D, who is in danger of drinking too much. There is no pressure on A and B. They are having their own way, and they like it. There is rarely any pressure on D. He does not like it, and evades it. The pressure all comes on C. The question then arises, Who is C? He is the man who wants alcoholic liquors for any honest purpose whatsoever, who would use his liberty without abusing it, who would occasion no public question, and trouble nobody at all. He is the Forgotten Man again, and as soon as he is drawn from his obscurity we see that he is just what each one of us ought to be.

From

May 26

2009-05-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Cardinal virtues: Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, and Justice.
Theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love.

cachinnating over wamble jokes

I like that phrase. Translated: Laughing loudly over upset stomach jokes.

Stuff Related to May 11, 2009 Post

2009-05-10T01:59:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the astute TDE readers that noticed this new feature. I hope to use it regularly, but until my busy season dies down a bit, I suspect I'll toss overflow material here only once or twice a week.

What's overflow? It could be anything, but it basically means interesting stuff that I can't weave into a regular post, for whatever reason.

*Anybody see the theme in today's headlines? Answer: Song titles.

*"Torn Between Two Lovers": Perhaps the most romantic skank song of all time.

*"The tattoos and piercings of 21st century bohemia are not transgressions against Emerson's legacy but odes to it." Leland, p. 44.

*"Thoreau said the nation's promise is in loafing, not achieving or acquiring." Id.

*"Malcolm Little, a Harlem hustler known as Detroit Red, signaled the new day when he appeared at the draft board in 1943. Dressed in his flashiest zoot suit, yellow knob-toe shoes and wildly conked red hair, he confided to the shrink, 'Daddy-o, now you and me, we're from up North here, so don't you tell nobody. . . . I want to get sent down South. Organize them nigger soldiers, you dig? Steal us some guns, and kill us crackers!' The draft board deferred him. Years later, when he spun similar riffs under the name Malcolm X, he turned white America's paranoia into his own sport." Leland, p. 116.

*An earlier writing about the Beatniks:

Detachment took another warped form when Jack Kerouac yelled at America in On the Road, a book based on his real-life meandering. He wrote the book in 1951 and carried the manuscript around with him for years in a rucksack as he journeyed across the nation, until it was finally accepted and published in 1957.

It quickly became a bestseller and brought the beatnik phenomenon onto America’s center stage (Kerouac himself would be written about in major magazines like Life, give numerous interviews, and be a guest on The Steve Allen Show). Fellow beatnik William Burroughs aptly described the sensation surrounding On the Road:

After 1957 On the Road sold a trillion Levis and . . . sent countless kids on the road. This was of course due in part to the media, the arch-opportunists. They know a story when they see one, and the Beat movement was a story, and a big one. . . . The Beat literary movement came at exactly the right time and said something that millions of people . . . were waiting to hear. You can’t tell anybody anything he doesn’t know already. The alienation, the restlessness, the dissatisfaction were already there waiting when Kerouac pointed out the road.

The lifestyle celebrated in On the Road is known as “Beat,” the aimless search for significant experience. The word Beat, according to Catholic-born Kerouac, is a religious word with a relation to the beatific vision.9 Though he never provided a complete or coherent explanation of the term, it is clear from the book’s protagonist, Sal Paradise, who longs for the road, his spasmodic friend Dean Moriarty (the “holy goof”), who zealously searches for “kicks,” and their intense fervor for novelties, that the Beat lifestyle required a religious-like devotion or practice.

To confirm his assertion that he was writing a religious book, Kerouac habitually sprinkled religious terms—like soul, holy, mystic, and immortal—throughout the book to describe the experiences of the road and provided short and grave sermons from the Beat’s high priest, Dean Moriarty (e.g., “‘I want you particularly to see the eyes of this little boy . . . and notice how he will come to manhood with his own particular soul bespeaking itself through the windows which are his eyes, and such lovely eyes surely do prophesy and indicate the loveliest of souls.’”10).

In their roaming, Sal and Dean thoroughly enjoy everything they encounter. They love the cars, the different airs of our country’s regions, and the girls. Many portions of the book relate nothing more than a list of things they see and how they “dig” them far more than any ordinary person would dig them.

Sal’s and Dean’s wanderings are exercises in detachment. The road detaches them from the binding conventionalities of normal society. As a result, they are able to enjoy everything and everyone, even the most disgusting, because they are able, in their unique way, to see God’s stamp of goodness on everything. At one point, for instance, they pick up an “incredibly filthy” hitchhiker at Dean’s insistence. The man is covered with scabs and is reading a muddy paperback he found in a culvert. They sit close to him and dig him the whole time, genuinely getting a kick out of talking to him, but without any hint of malice. They really like the guy and are totally absorbed by him. After dropping him off, Dean excitedly says about picking up the hitchhiker: “I told you it was kicks. Everybody’s kicks, man!”11 His attitude resembles St. Francis’s affection for lepers and Mother Teresa’s love for the diseased downtrodden in Calcutta. As all the saints realize, and as Sal and Dean experience, even the most filthy and diseased people are God’s creatures and therefore lovable—if only a person is sufficiently detached to see it.

On the Road also features holy men, men whose thorough detachment makes them willing outcasts of society. There’s the “wild, ecstatic” Rollo Greb, the Beat-saint Dean wants to imitate, a man who “didn’t give a damn about anything,” a “great scholar who goes reeling down the New York waterfront with original seventeenth-century musical manuscripts under his arm, shouting,” whose “excitement blew out of his eyes in stabs of fiendish light.” Dean admires him, telling Sal: “That Rollo Greb is the greatest, most wonderful of all . . . that’s what I want to be. I want to be like him. He’s never hung-up, he goes every direction, he lets it all out. . . . Man, he’s the end!” Then Dean alludes to the beatific vision Kerouac wanted to capture: “You see, if you go like him all the time you’ll finally get it.” Sal, puzzled, asks, “Get what?” Dean simply yells back: “IT! IT!”12 as though there is nothing else to add—a characteristic of mystics emerging from an intense round of meditation.

There’s also Bull Lee, the teacher of the Beat. To the Beats, he is the wise elder, a man who had read and done everything, a man who lived in the glorious pre-1914 days when narcotics were available over the counter. Bull Lee lives in an old shack in New Orleans with his wife (both Benzedrine addicts). He tinkers about the yard, reading Shakespeare and Kafka, hardly caring about anything (especially ignoring the cares of conventional society), and taking drug fixes to get him through the day (although Sal pities Bull Lee’s drug addiction, his pity resembles the novice’s pity for the abbot who has bad knees from too much kneeling).

Bull Lee’s drug use was not unique. The Beat life entailed heavy use of drugs. Kerouac in real life used Benzedrine, morphine, marijuana, hashish, LSD, opium, and massive quantities of alcohol. He was hospitalized in his twenties from excessive Benzedrine use and was a cadaver at age 47 from hemorrhaging of the esophagus, the drunkard’s classic death.